The Birth of Mormonism

By John Quincy Adams

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The Birth of Mormonism is a brief history of the religion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles River Editors
• Release date: Mar 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781518375569

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THE BIRTH OF MORMONISM

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John Quincy Adams

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Copyright © 2016 by John Quincy Adams

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

The Birth of Mormonism

CHAPTER I: Joseph Smith, Jr., and His Golden Plates

CHAPTER II: The Translation

CHAPTER III

The Publication of the Book of Mormon

CHAPTER IV: The Organization of the Church

CHAPTER V: The Witnesses

CHAPTER VI

The Book of Mormon and the Doctrines and Covenants

APPENDICES: A Authorities Used in the Preparation of The Birth of Mormonism

B THE NAUVOO EXPOSITOR

C A CONTEMPORARY DESCRIPTION OF JOSEPH SMITH, JR.

D ON MORAL CONDITIONS IN NAUVOO

The Birth of Mormonism

By

John Quincy Adams

PREFACE

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IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO burden the reader with a history of how this book came to be written. Its genesis was a paper prepared as a contribution to local history. It has grown with the years; it has made use of sources not ordinarily accessible and possibly no longer in existence; and it is believed that it presents more completely the story of the birth of Mormonism than any publication now in print. It is sent forth with the hope that it will help to arouse the American people to endeavor more energetically to remove this moral menace to and blot upon our country—the greatest religious fraud of the nineteenth century, if not of all time.

John Quincy Adams.

Auburn, New York, 1916.

THE BIRTH OF MORMONISM

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CHAPTER I

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JOSEPH SMITH, JR., AND HIS GOLDEN PLATES

IT IS PERHAPS NECESSARY TO remind ourselves that the closing years of the eighteenth and the first third, or more of the nineteenth century, furnished fruitful soil for religious cranks and hobbies and isms. Possibly no period in modern history has witnessed a more luxuriant growth of such products. Morality and religion were at a low ebb, or at least the latter was chiefly for fightings within if not without; for vagaries, divisions, sensations, physical and emotional, almost without number; for the falling, the jerking, the rolling, and the dancing, exercises to the glory of God; for Pilgrims (1817) , who were led by an inspired prophet, and who made of raggedness and uncleanness a virtue, wearing their clothes unchanged as long as they would hold together; for Dylkes, the Leatherwood God (1828), who at an Ohio camp meeting, announced himself as the professed Messiah; for Jemimah Wilkinson, the Universal Friend; for William Miller and the end of the world, with proper ascension robes, and for Joseph Smith, Jr., and the Mormon Bible. This is not a complete catalogue of such movements during these years, and from such sowing we are still reaping a harvest.

Of course this religious ferment had in it good as well as evil, but when we are tempted to sigh for the good old days of our fathers, we would do well to quit sighing and read some history. It is thought by many now that the early settlement of this part of the West, (Western and Central New York) consisted only of God-fearing, man-loving men and women, with children just ripe for the Sunday School book, and that in these ways they are in contrast with the settlers of the West of these degenerate days. But if contemporary chronicles are to be believed, while grace abounded sin did much more abound. Mormonism was, therefore, planted in fertile soil. The climate was favorable to its growth. The people delighted in humbuggery, and Joseph Smith is one of the high-priests of the art.

The First Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints was organized April 6, 1830, at the house of Peter Whitmer, Fayette, Seneca County, N. Y., with six members. In the history of Mormonism this is its official birthday, corresponding to the Day of Pentecost in the Christian Church. Mormon historians describe the events of this day in glowing language. Orson Pratt subsequently figured out that it was just